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enamouredOne of my favorite books of all time is The Westing Game. I read it for the first time in fifth grade--it was one of the last books we read during the school year, and while I was reading it I found myself skipping ahead because I could not put it down. This was a big deal, because while I had been able to be that engrossed in assigned reading before, I'd never read ahead. I was one of those "stick to the rules" kids, and if we were assigned chapters 1 and 2 of something, I only read 1 and 2.
I always skipped ahead to the next two chapters for The Westing Game, except at the end.
Anyway.
Sometime during the late '90s/early '00s, the book was adapted into a made-for-TV movie on Showtime. I was initially excited about it, until I found out that in addition to changing the title (I think it's called Get a Clue?), they had knocked down the number of the game's players to twelve, eliminating the Hoos and Theo Theodorakis, and that alone was enough to make me annoyed. I think I saw a part of it one night, and blocked out what memories I had because it made me that upset.
There are times when I have moments when I let myself fantasize about what I'd like to do in the future, if I become a writer/director, and one of my dreams is that I get to direct a movie version of The Westing Game that remedies the things that the Showtime version left out. And there is one major thing that I would do in my imagined version: bump the time period up to the mid '90s. The book was published in the mid-to-late '70s, and I feel like the only way that you could keep the same spirit of it, with the characters having to really stretch and scramble for the clues, would be to set the movie in a pre-Google/Wikipedia/keywords with quotation marks around them era.
And, okay, a little bit of my thoughts about that is colored by the fact that I read the book during the mid '90s and was picturing the era thusly. Plus, it would also make sense with some of the character's ages and perceptions of the other "players" in the game--like Sandy's immigrant status, the Judge's debts to Sam Westing, Grace's insecurity about her real maiden name, that sort of stuff.
Also in this fantasy, the score is jazzy kind of like the score for Catch Me if You Can, and the opening credits are animated and related to the clues or something. Actor-wise, I only have the following people in mind: Viola Davis for Judge Ford, Amanda Seyfried as Angela Wexler, Elle Fanning as Turtle (I alllmost would want Hailee Steinfeld), Stanley Tucci as Jake Wexler, and Armie Hammer as Denton Deere.
I have a very rich fantasy life.
I always skipped ahead to the next two chapters for The Westing Game, except at the end.
Anyway.
Sometime during the late '90s/early '00s, the book was adapted into a made-for-TV movie on Showtime. I was initially excited about it, until I found out that in addition to changing the title (I think it's called Get a Clue?), they had knocked down the number of the game's players to twelve, eliminating the Hoos and Theo Theodorakis, and that alone was enough to make me annoyed. I think I saw a part of it one night, and blocked out what memories I had because it made me that upset.
There are times when I have moments when I let myself fantasize about what I'd like to do in the future, if I become a writer/director, and one of my dreams is that I get to direct a movie version of The Westing Game that remedies the things that the Showtime version left out. And there is one major thing that I would do in my imagined version: bump the time period up to the mid '90s. The book was published in the mid-to-late '70s, and I feel like the only way that you could keep the same spirit of it, with the characters having to really stretch and scramble for the clues, would be to set the movie in a pre-Google/Wikipedia/keywords with quotation marks around them era.
And, okay, a little bit of my thoughts about that is colored by the fact that I read the book during the mid '90s and was picturing the era thusly. Plus, it would also make sense with some of the character's ages and perceptions of the other "players" in the game--like Sandy's immigrant status, the Judge's debts to Sam Westing, Grace's insecurity about her real maiden name, that sort of stuff.
Also in this fantasy, the score is jazzy kind of like the score for Catch Me if You Can, and the opening credits are animated and related to the clues or something. Actor-wise, I only have the following people in mind: Viola Davis for Judge Ford, Amanda Seyfried as Angela Wexler, Elle Fanning as Turtle (I alllmost would want Hailee Steinfeld), Stanley Tucci as Jake Wexler, and Armie Hammer as Denton Deere.
I have a very rich fantasy life.
